Nighties for Sophie

About a month ago, my friend Jessica emailed me and asked if I would be interested in sewing a nightie for her daughter, Sophie, for Christmas. She gave me a list of things Sophie likes, including dinosaurs, moons, cats, turtles and fairies. I found a bunch of options and eventually Jessica narrowed it down to two choices. Oddly, when you are sewing two of the same thing, it only takes a little longer than it would to sew one, when you would assume it would take twice as long. So I suggested that I just make two nighties, and Jessica thought that sounded like a solid plan.

I used McCall's 5969. And all I could think of the whole time I was sewing it is, why doesn't somebody make a ravelry-type website for sewing? This pattern had issues.

This is Nora, who is 8, wearing the size 7 nightie. Notice how her toes barely peek out the bottom, as the nightie goes all the way to the floor. When they first saw the finished nightie hanging up, the girls thought I had made myself a nice flannel dinosaur gown-that's how big it was. Oddly, the sleeve length is fine. I am trying to imagine the very tall child with freakishly short arms who served as the fit model for this pattern.

The casing on the sleeves was super weird, too. And the illustrations didn't exactly match the directions. I really hate that.

Here's Nora in the turtle nightie. It's a much better fit. I did French seams on both nighties wherever I could, as I do not own a serger. It worked really slick.

I shipped these off to New Hampshire on Wednesday and hope they arrive Saturday. I am really anxious to hear how they fit. I love how they turned out, with the soft flannel, the girly eyelet trim and the bows. I really hope Sophie is pleased with them.

Shirt Dress

A few weeks ago, I spent a couple of days cleaning out our closets and delivering garbage bags of clothes and toys to friends and to the thrift store. It's shocking how much stuff I got rid of, and shocking how much stuff we still own! Where does it all come from?!

Anyhoo, Kevin went through his dress shirts and made a big pile to donate. Among them was a plain black button up that I couldn't stop thinking about. It wasn't anything special, which was the whole point: it was plain. See, I bookmarked this tutorial forever ago and have had it in the back of my mind ever since. And so, when the closets were all shiny and clean, I got out the sewing machine and scissors and went to work.

I found some lemon-lime Fairy Frost fabric in the scrap bin and thought it would be perfect for accent.

And it is perfect, as long as you have a thing for fire fighters. Which I don't. Not that I am against fire fighters or anything, but I sure don't need to dress my daughter like one.

So I went back to the scrap bin and found some pale blue Fairy Frost to add.

Much improved, but still lacking in the charm I was going for.

At this point, Dana and I took a little trip to the fabric store, where we found cute ribbon and fancy buttons.

Ta-da!

I am still not totally in love, but considering it used to be a man's shirt, it looks pretty great. I love the idea that my girls could wear dresses made from Daddy's shirts, but I think I made some weird choices on this, starting with the black shirt itself. I will probably try this project again at some point, as it was really fun. I like the idea of a nice, cozy flannel dress. Hopefully Kevin won't mind if I raid his closet again.

Elsa in Hat

OK, maybe that hat I made was a little ridiculous.

I can't even look at Elsa in this picture because she is way, wayyyyyyy too cute!

Rhinosaur River etsy shop

Good morning!

I spent the past couple of days doing all of the necessary things to get my etsy shop going, and it's finally open and stocked with trick or treat bags!

There are twelve trick or treat bags up, and all of them are a little bit different. I think there are around eight different fabrics used in different combinations. They are all fully lined in solid black Kona cotton, so there are no unsightly seams.

I am working on a couple of purses and will have them posted in a few days. I have a few other ideas up my sleeve, too.

Changing Table

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child, a girl. She is officially two days overdue, so as I sit here waiting for the darn phone to ring announcing her arrival (in reality, my sister in law is at work and is decidedly NOT in labor), I thought I would post about her changing table.

My mother and father in-law bought this changing table for us when Nora was born. We didn't think we needed a changing table until we got this, and then we realized we NEEDED it. It has two shelves, which we used to store diapers, wipes, diaper cream, pajamas, etc. We used it through both girls, and then I lent it to a friend who had third child after giving away all of her baby gear. And then it sat in my garage.

So when I went to get it for Sam and Liz, I noticed that the pad was torn. Badly. It looked awful, and nobody would want to put a baby onto it. The pad itself wasn't torn-just the cover was. So you could see the foam beneath.

Anyhow, I looked around for a new pad and couldn't find one locally. This one came with the changing table, and it came from Toys R Us, which is no longer open in our city. And then I remembered that my favorite fabric shop carries laminated fabric, so I went shopping.

The fabric is from Amy Butler's Love line. I love that it is girly without being ridiculous. There's pink and purple and flowers, but it's modern and it doesn't scream "PRINCESS!"

I decided that the easiest way to do this thing was to rip off the old plastic cover and toss it, which I did. Then my plan was to sew the new cover together, wrong sides together, and to finish it with a coordinating bias tape.


OK, so sewing on the right sides of laminated fabric is pretty much impossible. The stuff is sticky! The feed dogs could not figure out how to get it through. So I improvised, and in the end it saved a lot of time and monkeying around. I cut 2" wide strips of regular woven fabric, also from the Love collection. I stitched the ends together so it would be long enough to go around the entire pad cover. Then I did the whole pressing thing to make it into 1/2" wide bias tape.

THEN I put the wrong sides of the laminated fabric together, and I sandwiched it into the bias tape. I stitched through all of the layers at once, so I had regular woven fabric under the presser foot and over the feed dogs. I went slowly, sandwiching the laminate correctly as I went. I went around 3 sides, then arranged the foam in the cover before closing up the last side. And then I stitched around the entire thing again because I am an overachiever.

And now that I am done, I feel like I should make a couple of absorbent pads out of Love flannel to go on top. Because you can't just change a baby on laminate because it's cold and kind of sticky, and because if there's an accident, there's nothing to absorb it-it'll just run off onto the floor or, worse, onto whoever is changing Baby. And so now that is on my to-do list, along with about 14 other things, most of which are huge and ridiculous projects (like painting the bedrooms).

I am going to go clean out my horrifyingly messy closet now in hopes that the phone call comes while I am in the middle of a disaster. I am dying to see what color Baby's hair is (in ultrasound pictures, she has a full head of hair!), what color her eyes are, and how chubby her cheeks are.

Dress to Skirt

I recently went through the girls' dressers and closet, removing outgrown and weather-inappropriate clothing and things that required mending or a good stain soak.

And I came across this dress.



This is Dana's all-time favorite dress. She wore it for two summers, as often as possible, sometimes several times a week. It has been laundered about 10,000 times. The length is still OK, despite it being a 4T and her being in a 5 or 6 in everything else, so I was going to throw it in the summer bin in case it still fits her in June. And then I noticed that the stitching was coming out on the straps. So I brought it downstairs to stitch them back together, but it didn't work because the fabric on the straps was kind of rotten. There were so many tiny holes that there wasn't anything to sew together. I was trying to think of how to make new straps when it occurred to me that it's a 4T and the chances that it will be long enough next summer are slim to none. And if the straps are rotten, the rest of it can't be that far behind.

And so I converted it to a skirt.

I had Dana put it on so I could figure out how long to make it, and then, after she took it off, I carefully cut the bodice off and threw it away. I folded about an inch down along the waist to form a casing, and I stitched it down, leaving an opening for elastic. I had some 1" elastic in my stash, so I measured it around Dana's waist, cutting it 1" shorter than her waist is around. I fed it through the casing, stitched the ends together, stitched the casing closed and voila! A skirt!

I thought it needed something to spice it up a bit, but I didn't have any appropriate ribbon in my stash. I DID come across some ivory seam binding tape, so I fed it through my machine with the stitch length at 5, and then I pulled the bottom thread to gather it. I adjusted it so it would fit around the hem, and then I just sewed it along the hemline.

Dana thinks it's great! And the whole thing took less than an hour. I didn't even use pins!

Pickles and Hats

I always forget how busy life gets in August. I have been busy making jam, picking and freezing quart after quart of raspberries, making pickles (over 50 quarts so far!)... Last week, Kevin's parents bought me a pressure cooker, which has me over the moon! Jerry, my father in law, picked me an entire grocery sack of green beans from his garden, and I canned 14 pints, including a bunch of hot dilly beans.

My friend Charity and I each bought half a bushel of pickling cucumbers from a local farm and spent a day making 44 quarts of dills. I have also been picking tons of cucumbers from my dad's gardens, and have so far made 9 quarts of hamburger dills and dill spears. I have a bag of 8 cukes sitting on my counter right now, meaning tomorrow I will make another batch.

Today I threw a baby shower for Liz, my sister in law, along with my sister Alyx and Liz's sister Cassie.

It's a girl!

Baby is due at the end of September, so I made her two hats:

The first one is the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap. It's a nod to my dad and his Norwegian heritage. Plus it's so cute!

Here it is on Dana's baby, Dizzy. It will actually fit like a little pilot cap, framing New Baby's face, but Dizzy is the best model I could come up with. Since we know Baby is a girl, I did a yarn over rather than a make one because I thought the eyelets would look sweet, which they do. I also made the stripes 4 rounds tall rather than 2 rounds tall. I like the wider stripes.

Since our winters get pretty ugly, I also made a Meathead to keep her warm. It's 2 strands of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Bulky held together, so it will be really super cozy. The flower accent is just polar fleece from my stash. I sort of freehanded with my scissors, then found a suitable button in my button box.